The+Golden+Compass



The golden compass trilogy seems like a natural progression in christian literature. yes, it is christian literature, the same way the chronicles of narnia are. aslan is only a lion when the reader is about 10 or so in the united states. after a point, he unrepentantly becomes jesus. and the four children are like, the gospels or something. and the story is somewhat ruined then, because as an adult, you can't just shoehorn jesus into a lion outfit without snickering a little.

//The Golden Compass//, by Philip Pullman, picks up where the Harry Potter series leaves off. As in Rowling's series, the hero of //The Golden Compass//--Lyra, a pre-teen girl in Oxford, England--is plucked from her mundane existence to become supremely important to the fate of the living world.

However, unlike the Potter series, //The Golden Compass//, immerses us immediately in political, religious, and cultural conflict as well. While the central character is indeed a child, which lands this title in the children's section, the themes and conflicts in the novel are often very adult, the action sometimes gruesome, and characters' behaviors and motivations quite complex.

The sophistication of the story will be lost over children's heads.

Nonetheless, the action will sustain.

For children, //The Golden Compass// is the story of Lyra Belacqua's adventure to the arctic to rescue her friend Roger, who has been kidnapped by adults who run experiments on children. The story is set loosely in our world and in the past, but in Pullman's revision, every human being has a "daemon" that is a physical manifestation of that person's soul in the form of an animal that is psychically, or perhaps spiritually, connected to the person. The experiments involve the investigation into and hideous manipulation of that connection. Along the way, Lyra meets talking bears, flying witches, and much, much more.

For adults, the novel asks questions about the relationship between religion and science. It explores political coercion and subterfuge. It examines class differences. And, to a very real degree, I think, it focuses on adult obsession with innocence and experience--both in a religious context and in a childhood/adolescence/adulthood context.

The result of all of this is a multi-layered novel. It's fun, but also thought-provoking--and potentially scandalous.

//Do I recommend it?// Yes. Fun and thoughtful: a novel vision. //Would I teach it?// Hard to say. Likely not. It's a wonderful and intricate piece of writing--some of the passages are beautiful and the content generates many talking points--but much of it feels too overtly didactic. //Lasting impression:// This is another magnificently realized escapist fantasy like the Harry Potter series. And, from the very beginning it is laden with complex political and social intrigue the stuff of which appears in "grown-up" fiction.